Roads galore, but quality of works matters too
The Government has done impressive work in the area of roads, with the much-maligned Thika superhighway and the Eastern bypass in Nairobi being the most obvious examples.
Unfortunately, all the good effort risks being diluted by poor workmanship and shoddy construction in other areas.
When the Roads Ministry was listed as the worst performer recently, the minister was incensed and rolled out what he believed was an impressive array of completed and ongoing projects across the country to refute the claims. In his mind, performance is about quantity and not quality.
It is all very well to build roads, but there is a component that many, including the Government, have failed to pay keen attention to, and that is road repairs and maintenance. The Kenya Urban Roads Authority (Kura) stands in the line of fire over the quality of road works in Nairobi.
Contracts were dished out to local companies and various road repairs undertaken over the last two years.
However, the current heavy rains have exposed the failure of the Kura to ensure contractors met the requisite wuality standards in carrying out the projects.
In many parts of Nairobi, including Eastlands, Kilimani, Langata, Nairobi West and Industrial Area, floods have destroyed many of the roads that were rebuilt or repaired.
In fact, most are in a worse state than before the repairs. What went wrong? It appears that certain companies that were awarded the tenders sub-contracted the same to other companies to do the actual works. Were these companies given sufficient funds to go beyond just basic minimum works?
grossly mistaken
In the process, there appears to have been shortcuts taken in terms of the mixture of the materials used that severely compromised the final product. Did the chief accounting officer in Kura ensure adequate feasibility studies were done in order to come up with the right contract specifications for the various roads in Nairobi?
What is emerging is that in many cases, contractors have ignored several key repairs, including opening up of blocked sewage or drainage lines, stone-pitching of drains and concrete works on outfall drains and slope protection.
Others got away without completing pavement works and sealing of access roads along all the project roads including shoulders. Some failed to correct defects linked to whip-off of surface dressing, silted inlets and outlets of some access and cross culverts and silted side drains.
Residents of Nairobi’s South C Estate have to drive or wade through flooded roads everytime it rains heavily because the roads were never properly designed to drain excess water.
Yesterday we reported that the World Bank plans to prioritise funding for roads among other key areas.
But the bank has warned the Government must address concerns surrounding governance issues in past projects. The Government seems to think the appointment of Maktar Diop as the World Bank’s new Vice-President for Africa will see the floodgates of aid open to finance key infrastructure projects.
It is grossly mistaken.
If anything, Diop has excellent insight into how the Government’s corruption networks operate, and is unlikely to sign off on any funding until he is sure governance loopholes are fully sealed.
There has been an outcry over the huge presence of Chinese firms in infrastructure projects, with some legislators calling for local firms to be given more contracts.
But what Kura has proven is that Kenya does not have local capacity to carry out important road improvement projects and local contractors cannot be trusted to adhere to best practice without cutting corners.
It is all too easy to blame the heavy rains for some of the destruction visited on roads in Nairobi and other urban centres, but as any good engineer will tell you, short of a geological eruption, a properly built road should last for up to a 15 years before requiring major repairs.
structure of corruption
Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee and the Auditor General have compiled numerous reports detailing the structure of corruption within the Roads Ministry. What action has the minister taken to ensure contractors awarded tenders have the capacity to meet the requirements?
Why is it that companies without any proven record in road works have in the recent past received contracts from Kura to carry out road repairs?
Does the ministry have a quality checklist that meets international best practice and does it audit contractors to ensure they have clean footprints in previous projects?
As things stand, the biggest problem facing Kenya today is not building roads, but maintaining them.
Until Government finds the right balance between these two, money thrown on road projects is just good money following bad cash.
